Our Favorite Everyday Olive Oil
Simply Recipes ranked ZOE #1 (overall winner) for favorite everyday olive oil in a taste test among 20 top extra virgin olive oil brands
• “ZOE EVOO is a supple balance of fruit and butter with an aromatic bouquet of fresh basil, almond, and artichoke heart with a peppery finish. Fruity and rich, it’s ideal for sautéeing, salad dressing, and pastas.”
• “Coming in at #1 in our taste test was Zoe’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which is a cold-pressed Spanish olive oil. We found this olive oil to be well-balanced, smooth, and a little slow to arrive to a spicy finish, which meant the flavor was present but not overpowering—in other words, a great everyday oil! Emma thought it tasted “buttery, rich, and interesting,” while Megan called it “pure sunshine, the perfect essence of ripe olives!” Zoe Extra Virgin Olive Oil is certified by the North American Olive Oil Association, which tests for adherence to the purity and quality standards set by the International Olive Council (IOC). Th
“There’s that quote that goes, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
For the last few months, we’ve been taste-testing a new cooking staple every month to find the best products for your pantry. (Just hearing about this now? Check out our past picks for our favorite creamy natural peanut butter, jarred tomato sauce, boxed chicken broth, and gluten-free pasta!)
This month we searched for the best everyday olive oil, because olive oil may be the most essential cooking staple of all! We cook with it. We bake with it. And then we cook with it some more! The Simply Recipes editors go through a lot of olive oil, which is why we wanted to find a solid, go-to bottle that wouldn’t break the bank and was versatile enough to be used both for cooking and dressing and drizzling.
We tasted 10 brands of extra virgin olive oils in two rounds, and it was a tight race to the finish!
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__simply_recipes__uploads__2020__03__Fav-Olive-Oil-LEAD-02-1024x682-84418fc09f134690a46b88621fd11745.jpg)
How We Tested
As with every Pantry Power series, we tried to pick olive oils that were readily available nationwide, either online or in grocery stores. We only tested extra virgin olive oil, because it’s the highest-quality oil you can buy and most likely to meet the dual standards we set for finding one bottle of olive oil we could use for both cooking and dressing. We kept pricing to $20 or under for a 33.3 fluid ounce (1 liter) bottle.
We started with 10 bottles from a variety of brands for our first-round taste test and then considering taste, price, and overall accessibility, we selected five olive oils to move on to a second-round test with the whole Simply Recipes team. We tasted each olive oil plain on a spoon and with a piece of bread.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__simply_recipes__uploads__2020__03__Fav-Olive-Oil-LEAD-04-1024x682-f866afec18f14abbb54c779e965649ce.jpg)
The Winner
Zoe Extra Virgin Olive Oil!
Description: ZOE EVOO is a supple balance of fruit and butter with an aromatic bouquet of fresh basil, almond, and artichoke heart with a peppery finish. Fruity and rich, it’s ideal for sautéeing, salad dressing, and pastas.
Coming in at #1 in our taste test was Zoe’s Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which is a cold-pressed Spanish olive oil. We found this olive oil to be well-balanced, smooth, and a little slow to arrive to a spicy finish, which meant the flavor was present but not overpowering—in other words, a great everyday oil!
Emma thought it tasted “buttery, rich, and interesting,” while Megan called it “pure sunshine, the perfect essence of ripe olives!”
Zoe Extra Virgin Olive Oil is certified by the North American Olive Oil Association, which tests for adherence to the purity and quality standards set by the International Olive Council (IOC). This is important because there is a lot of fraud in the olive oil industry! At around $12 per liter, Zoe olive oil is also a great value, so you can stock up and use it with abandon for all your cooking needs!
Zoe Extra Virgin olive oil can be purchased on Amazon or at Walmart.
